This weekend racing abounds across the states with plenty of stakes racing including some futurities and several Derbies. Weekend stars include Irap and Untrapped of Derby debacle notoriety, but who are both on the comeback trail. Songbird will be racing as well, and a new star may be born in one of the weekend futurities. West Coast and Klimt look to rejuvenate their 3yo careers.
.
***** This summer’s spectacular deal: 1 month free included with any WWC subscription! That means 3 months for the price of 2, 2 for 1, or however you want to do it! More detail at bottom…*****
.
Stakes racing begins on Saturday early at Belmont with a 100k listed stakes for 2yo’s going 6f. The field of 6 has Carlos Martin’s Morning Breez a slight ML favorite over Pletcher’s Analyze the Odds. Pletcher also has What a Catch, giving him 1/3 of the field, a 90% probability of winning, and 100% probability of finishing at least 2nd.
.
Delaware has what is their biggest race day of the year, with 4 stakes races including the Kent G3 and the Delaware Handicap G1. The $200k Kent is for 3yo’s going 9f on the turf. Being turf horses, most of them you would not have heard of from the Kentucky Derby trail, except for Master Plan, the 2nd alternate that didn’t get in. He’s the 2nd ML choice after Crhistophe Clement’s Frostmourne, winner of the G2 Penn Mile. Master Plan was an OBS champ before shipping to Meydan to finish 3rd in the UAE Derby. A strange Derby trail for sure. Since then he’s finished 5th in the Peter Pan and now appears on turf. Todd will figure him out soon. The horse who finished 4th in the OBS champ race, Adonis Creed, will also be participating.
.
One of the biggest races of the year for fillies and mares is the G1 Delaware Handicap worth $750k for females 3 and up. 5 of them will take shot at superfilly Songbird at 1-5, who was all lined up to win the Kentucky Oaks last year before skipping it. After that, she went on to dominate again until her 2nd place finish in the Breeders Cup Distaff, her first and only loss. So far the 4yo has won 13 races including 8 G1’s and 3 other graded stakes. Going 10f is probably the best chance to beat her front running style, but none of the competition has ever been competition for Songbird yet.
.
Indiana Grand is having their big race night of the year, hosting 6 stakes races highlighted by the G3 -Indiana Oaks and the $500k G3 Indiana Derby. To show you the quality of competition in the Oaks, the 7-5 ML favorite is Mopotism, who finished 10th in the Kentucky Oaks at 45-1. Also from the Oaks will be 8-1 Wicked Luck who finished 13th of 14 at 38-1.
.
The half million dollar Indiana Derby will have a more serious field, featuring Kentucky Derby failures that came out of the debacle in good shape. Favored Irap at 8-5 ML won the Ohio Derby G3 3 weeks ago, beating favored Girvin in a very close photo finish that took a while to decode. Girvin won’t be here, but 3rd place Ohio finisher Untrapped is at 6-1 ML as the 2nd choice. Others that were on the Derby trail that will be competing here are Wild Shot and Hollywood Handsome.
.

Irap, forefront, eventually edged past Girvin in a long and valiant stretch run in the 2017 Ohio Derby

.
Little Los Alamitos is also having a Derby on Saturday so that the other west coast colts don’t miss out on the G3 stakes action for $200k. Favored is Baffert’s West Coast, who came onto the scene late with a Lexington Stakes 2nd place finish. 2nd choice Klimt had early Derby hopes and points after a 2nd place finish in the Frontrunner stakes but hasn’t done much since. Over all, there are 8 set for the field, with Doug O’neill stacking the deck with 3 long shots. Term of Art is listed at 15-1 but will likely come down to single digits. He was in the WWC top 20 as late as the first week of April.
.
There are also some nice stakes races around the nation at smaller time tracks such as Laurel, Monmouth, Northlands, Prairie, and Woodbine. If you subscribe to the Weekend Winners Club, you get the Grid for all these great races included in your membership.
.
And this week we’re offering the deal of the year: 1 month of the Grid free! That is correct! When you sign up for either the 1 month, 2 month, 3 month or more package, you get 1 bonus month free!!
.
This will easily get you thru all of the summer’s great racing. That includes the legendary Saratoga Meet which begins next week with the Lake George and Schuylerville Stakes and graduating to the Diana G1 on Saturday, and American Oaks on Sunday. The meet runs until early September and you don’t want to miss it! Same goes for the incredible Del Mar summer meeting.